As we
passed the midpoint of the last month of the year, Chris and I were both in
sort of a funk yesterday. I guess the
added stress of the party and still having to stay on top of our weekly stuff
just finally wore us down. We talked
about going to see Star Wars, but we worried that we would fall asleep. That wouldn’t have been so unusual for me,
but when Chris drops off in the middle of the day … she’s tired.
Instead
we lolled around the house and munched on Christmas Mix. That’s a concoction Chris makes from chex
cereal (making it perfectly healthy up
front, right?), pretzels, M&M’s, and chocolate chips, all held together
by melted and drizzled on top chocolate stuff.
I’m sure you’d hate it, so I’ll take the holiday hit for you and get it
eaten. Now that snack came only after
our meal, of course. Chris had some leftovers
of her homemade vegetable soup. I had
leftover crab dip from the party. Good
stuff. Can’t waste something like
that.
Ultimately,
we decided to stay in and crash. I did
make a run to the bank, but it was cold outside, so I got back home as soon as
I could. Now by crash I mean we worked
on Christmas presents. Chris can’t just
sit around a whole day, you know. We wrapped
some of the gifts we already had, and then we were forced to go to Walmart to search
for some more.
There
was a bit of confusion when we went to get our shopping cart. One of the workers offered us one that she
had just received from an exiting shopper.
I didn’t hear it, but she apparently made a comment to Chris about Santa
being out of uniform or being in cognito and getting some shopping done. I get that every so often when I let my beard
grow out. But hey, it’s the season, right? Ho.
Ho. Ho.
People
watching gets better and better as Christmas approaches. We ran into a little gang action inside the
store. They were hanging around in the toy
department. Specifically the Lego
aisle. Of course that’s where we decided
we just had to go. Actually they were
very polite to us. I got a real kick out
trying to do some instant analysis. The center
pieces of the gang were the two very cute girls, one with two tiny little
pigtails. They stuck to each other like glue,
whispering back and forth and staying close enough to touch each other’s arms
regularly. The six or eight boys were
all hovering around them. One guy was
the group spokesman. He’s the one who
told them to get out of our way. Two of
the guys were obviously hangers-on. They
stayed just apart from the group, careful to remain a part of the whole, but
still maintain a sense of self-determination.
They had in fact already moved before the alpha male insisted that the
rest get out of the way. One fellow was
apparently the comic relief. He always
had a smile and did a fair amount of talking.
The others seemed to enjoy having him around. One guy was the “cool one” of the bunch. He carried his skateboard with him. And the others were just that … the
others. They probably had a serious
crush on one or both of the girls, but were petrified to even speak to
them. Sigh. I remembered back to my own Junior High Gang
days. Oh, did I not mention that they
were all in Junior High at best? Yep, I could
work a passable comic relief role, but if I am honest, I generally hovered
somewhere between the hangers-on and the “others” categories. Always wondered what it would be like to be
the “cool guy” or even the guy who the girls actually liked.
We
ended our “day off” watching part of a bad movie (Title was Angry Angel. Typically
bad theology. Even worse acting). We couldn’t stomach the whole thing, so we switched
to an episode of MacGiver that we had taped.
Only MacGiver can get arrested, be interrogated by local police and the FBI,
take down a major drug and gun smuggling ring, and get back home, all in an
hour. He’s a pretty special guy. And just think … he was one of “the others”
as well. Guess there’s always hope, isn’t
there?
Psalms
17:8 says, “Keep me as the apple of your
eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings.”
Father,
watch over those youngsters we saw at the store yesterday. Draw them to yourself. Amen.
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